In today's highly competitive business world, advertising to customers, both potential and previous, is a necessity. Businesses are always looking for ways to increase revenue, and increasing its sales to customers through advertising plays a large part in many business's plans for growth. Advertising has shown to be an effective method to inform, persuade or remind target buyers of the business's goods, services or goodwill, with the ultimate goal being that an advertisement will result in the sale of the goods or services. Studies have confirmed that the more that an advertisement can be made relevant and timely for a particular intended recipient, the more likely that it is to be successful. Location-based service (LBS) providers allow a business to provide a location-based service, e.g., coupon, advertisements, brochures, information, etc., to potential customers that are both timely and relevant. For example, a smart-phone (or other networked mobile device) user may register with the LBS provider to be provided with a service when the user is in the proximity of a selected business. This requires that the LBS provider be able to determine the location of the user. Typically this is done in one of two ways. The user's device can continually broadcast his/her location to the LBS provider or can use his/her device to manually ‘check in’ and search for nearby selected businesses. The first solution is flawed because it offers no location privacy for the user. The LBS provider continually receives the user's location, even when the user is nowhere near a selected business. The user is required to place great trust in the LBS provider; if the user does not want to be constantly tracked by the LBS provider, he/she will not sign up for the service.
The second solution is also less than ideal because it requires the user to actively send his/her location and search for nearby approved locations. This requires work on the part of the user. If the user does not check in frequently, the user may miss out on desired location-based services. Additionally, the LBS provider would receive a user's location only sporadically when the user inputs his/her location. A business that wants to advertise using the LBS provider may determine that it is not worth the fees imposed by the LBS provider if large numbers of potential customers are missed.
Another possible solution is for the user to download all locations of interest, e.g., all locations of a selected business, from the LBS provider to his/her mobile device. This allows the user to automatically figure out that he/she is near a selected business location without broadcasting his/her location. However the problem with this solution is that it reveals the LBS provider's database contents of business locations to the user, thereby preventing the LBS provider from offering an ongoing service.